


all things in time

by dollylux



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Barclay to the Rescue, Camping, Even If Barclay Doesn't Know It, Hurt Stern, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Pining, Protective Barclay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 15:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: When Barclay returns from helping The Pine Guard on a hunt, he finds that Stern is gone.





	all things in time

**Author's Note:**

> This'll have at least one more part. Stern needs to get his man, right?<3
> 
> Also: title from the beautiful Toad the Wet Sprocket.
> 
> (I picture Stern as a [Tyler Young](https://btscelebs.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/tyleryoung.png?w=640%22) lookin babydoll and Barclay as a [Joe Manganiello](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/83/9c/6d/839c6d8df41527557bf5a4b9eea5d998.jpg) lookin mf. Just in case you were wondering.)

Even though this human form is anything but ancient, Barclay can’t help but feel the ache of his secret bones when he sees the welcoming lights of the Amnesty Lodge for the first time in awhile.

The hunt had required more than the surprisingly adept trio of Duck, Aubrey, and Ned, and Barclay had volunteered his services without having to be asked. They’d won, and they’d dispersed back to their respective dwellings, and Barclay knew that Aubrey was already inside, was probably already in her pjs on the couch in front of the fireplace with a lapful of Dani. The thought comforts him more than he would have expected.

Barclay has a warm heart in any form, but he guards it carefully.

He’d chosen to walk back to the lodge, taking solace in the familiarity of the forest at night, welcoming the sounds of cicadas and the faint breeze of late July in the trees. A storm was coming, a big one of Barclay’s senses were right, and tomorrow looked to be a grey, wet one.

Hardly anyone is left in the lobby by the time he steps inside, smelling of wilderness and feeling tired in a way he has no right to. Moira glances up from her eternal seat behind the piano where she’s playing a soft lullaby to ease the lodge into sleep, and her smile is gentle. He nods in greeting and continues across the lobby to the stairs, seeking out his own room in the attic of this big old building; the small, sloped space he considered a sanctuary within a sanctuary, one that contained all of his material things, his meager trinkets from the past, and his old, comfy bed.

The cuff on his wrist feels tight the way it only does when he’s exhausted, when he aches to yank it off and stretch out in his true form, to rest in ways he can’t as Barclay the Human. Even so, he resists the urge and strips out of his well worn jeans and his sturdiest flannel, almost tripping over his kicked off work boots on the way to bed. He closes his eyes the second he hits the mattress, his sigh turning into a rumbling yawn as he settles in and passes out immediately.

\--

He wakes to the sound of rain on the roof a few feet overhead, a steady, long rain that wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Thunder rumbles a short distance away, and Barclay relaxes back onto the mattress and scratches lazily at his belly beneath his t-shirt. How tempting to take another day off, to stay in bed all day and let the storm outside mask the sounds of his snoring, but he’s needed downstairs.

He pulls on a pair of sweatpants and takes his hair down out of the ratty ponytail it’s become only to shake out the small bits of bark and leaves he’d gathered on the way home last night before putting it right back up in its rightful bun. The trek downstairs is short, and he tries to keep his footfall light.

“Oh, thank god,” Dani sighs the second she sees him in the lobby on his way to the kitchen. “I love Jake, you know I do, but he manages to burn coffee every morning.”

Barclay smiles to himself as Dani follows him into the kitchen and hops up on the counter, seemingly content to wait there for her morning coffee.

“No, really, Barclay. _Really._ Every. Morning.”

“It feels good to be needed, Dan,” he replies, plunking a filter into the coffee pot and reaching for the bag of grounds Dani likes best, a Honduran dark roast he has to special order once a month or so. The smell of coffee permeates the kitchen, inevitably drifting out into the main lobby and towards the rest of the lodge. It was only a matter of time before the rest of Amnesty came to life.

“Where’s Stern? He’s usually fighting you for the big mug by now.”

Apron tied around his waist, he gathers the makings for pancakes and starts his customary prep. A glance out at the counter bar through the window allowing him view of the lobby is Stern-less, and he swallows around the ache in his throat at the fact. He cracks an egg on the side of the bowl and dumps it into the flour and baking soda. Well. Maybe he’d slept in. Maybe he’s--

“Oh, he left a few days ago. Like, Tuesday, I think. Off to track Bigfoot in the woods.” Dani shimmies closer to the coffee machine, the covetous mug clutched in her hands. She looks up at Barclay with big blue eyes, her gasp entirely dramatic. “Oh! Found him! Shit, I should call Stern back, huh?”

Her grin only grows in the face of his glare, and he stops mixing the pancake batter entirely.

“Wait. A few days ago? Does he even know how to… to, like--”

“Camp? Fish? Pitch a tent? Take off his suit? I doubt it, my dude. I really do.”

“Ugh, don’t call me that.” He reaches for the bow holding his waist apron on and tugs it, tossing the apron onto the counter once it’s loose. “You’ve been hanging around Aubrey too much.”

“Not nearly enough, if you ask me,” she replies, switching out the coffee pot for her mug to catch the slow drip of the machine. She looks over at him, her pretty features scrunching up in confusion. “Wait. Where are you going? Why… why are there no pancakes?”

“He’s been gone for four days! I can’t--”

“Technically this is the fifth day.”

He shoots her another look, one that has prompted Aubrey to call him ‘Dad’ on more than one occasion.

“I can’t believe you just let him go like that.”

“He’s a big boy, Barclay! What was I supposed to do? Bite him?”

“Still,” he grumbles, grabbing some pre-packaged granola and fruit to stuff into a packed bag later. “Doesn’t mean he knows how not to die in the woods, the idiot.”

The last two words are said too fondly for Barclay’s liking, but Dani doesn’t call him on it. She slips down off the counter carefully, balancing her too full mug and frowning at him.

“But. But. Pancakes?”

“There are Eggos in the freezer!” he calls back, nearly slamming into Aubrey in front of the staircase. She blinks up at him bleary eyed, her curls wild with sleep and love.

“Pancakes?” she mumbles hopefully, and he only just restrains himself from sighing.

“Help your girlfriend. I know you’re not as useless in the kitchen as she is.”

He nudges her toward the kitchen and runs upstairs as quietly as his big frame will let him, and he blames the quick cadence of his heart on the ascent. Stern’s probably fine. Probably glamping with a generator and missing about ten permits that Duck would lecture him about, if he found him.

He’s fine. Surely.

Barclay almost tears his favorite blue flannel in his haste to pull it on.

\--

The Monongahela is vast, nearly 1500 square miles of forest, large swaths of which are untouched and unknown to most of the population. Barclay had considered it home for years at a time before he’d met Mama, had taken comfort in the knowledge that he could exist in these beautiful woods safely, not hurting anyone and not letting anyone hurt him. 

He walks confidently through the forest, the same surety and joy that some may feel driving the backroads near their childhood home. The rain is pouring overhead, soaking into his jacket and making each step sink deeper into the ground, but it feels soft to him, warm, and something like relief courses through his body. He stays cooped up far too much, lets this uncivilized part of himself lie dormant for more than he should. His muscles stretch and relax and burn pleasantly, and after only a couple of hours, he’s made his way much deeper into the forest, using only his instincts and his knowledge of human behavior to guide him in his search.

A creek rushes nearby, joining the rain in adding a watery musicality to Barclay’s journey. The trees offer him no clues, and any footprints Stern may have left have been blurred by rainfall. He toys with his cuff, a forefinger sliding beneath it to touch skin a few shades paler than the rest of him. If he were in his true form, he could traverse the woods much more easily, he could move in virtual silence and track Stern with every one of his senses without effort. But.

But.

He sighs and comes to a slow stop, letting his hand fall from the cuff. He presses his palm to the pine nearest to him and closes his eyes, focusing entirely on his sense of smell as he draws in a deep breath. Pine sap, silt loam, creekwater brine, the faint scent of decay, and his own, personal scents; sweat and some commercial deodorant and unwashed hair. Probably should have showered before he left.

No human. No Stern.

“Fuck,” he says softly, hand falling away from the treetrunk. He tries to think, to be logical about this, recalling all the places that have become local legend, have become sacred spots to cryptid hunters who sought out their own Bigfoot sightings in Barclay’s backyard. Places where he had been foolish and reckless and let himself be seen many years before, places where people who poured over the contents of the Cryptonomica with the fervency of religious zealots came to camp out and search for him.

Not knowing that he was usually in a kitchen some miles away, scrubbing meatloaf out of a pan.

The rain picks up without warning, falling so hard that the sound is nearly deafening. Barclay steadies himself and gets his bearings, glancing one way and the other before setting off due southeast, in the direction of the most well-known Bigfoot hotspot. Stepping directly into a trap, more than likely.

He double checks that the cuff is secure on his wrist, just in case.

It’s nearly dusk by the time he finds his way to the general area he’d been seeking out, and the rain is just as persistent as it’s been all day, so much that the ground is sopping wet on the forest floor, making each step more difficult than the last. He’s about to just stop, to make camp in the next small clearing he finds, when he sees something that makes him come to a dead stop.

Apples. Everywhere.

On fallen tree logs, stuck onto broken branches of several trees, even one hanging by a string from a branch, the bright red of it visible even in the failing light.

Barclay smiles in spite of himself.

A few more steps reveal a slight decline and then a break in the trees, roughly circular, just big enough for a small camp. As Barclay’s eyes adjust, he sees the signs of him, the tiny rectangle of light from his infrared camera and the faint glow of a mostly concealed flashlight. He stops moving and listens through the rain, his eyes trained on the camera screen where it moves minutely in the darkness, probably clutched in Stern’s nervous hands.

A strange sound suddenly shatters the quiet of the dark, and Barclay nearly stumbles in his haste to crouch out of sight, all his instincts firing right now to survive. Survive.

It’s an all too familiar chirrup, a sound that’s become known to these hunters as one Bigfoot makes. Barclay tries not to be insulted, as he is every time he hears it, that they could think he would make such a delicate noise.

He isn’t a female seeking out her children, after all.

Silence follows the weak attempt at communication, and Barclay waits, amused and curious. He’s going to frighten Stern now no matter how he approaches, but the distance between them allows him to indulge in his fascination, both with Bigfoot hunters and Stern in particular.

He’s got to be freezing. And terrified.

The next sound Stern attempts is a call, a growling one that couldn’t be deep if his life depended on it. It ends on a weak upnote, like a baby bear cub learning to be menacing. Barclay curls his lips into his mouth and bites hard on them, holding in a snorting laugh that Stern would be insulted by for the rest of his life, probably. 

Cute. As a so-called Bigfoot and a Sylph and a man, Barclay is charmed.

Maybe it’s mean, but he can’t help it. He takes a deep breath and lets out a response call, one that drops down deep in his chest, scrapes the very bottom before lifting up into something that echoes through the forest, breaking through the storm. It’s as close to his true call as he can get in this form.

Whether Stern knows it or not, he’d just had a conversation that had more or less been:

_”Daddy?”_

and

_”Over here, baby.”_

Utter silence follows.

Barclay reaches up and grabs the dangling apple, pulling on it with a snap of the stem that Stern surely hears. He walks straight towards Stern’s camp, biting into the apple that bursts sweet and bright over his tongue. He’s still chewing when he finds his way down the small hill and to the edge of Stern’s camp. He squints when a flashlight beams straight in his face, and he lifts a hand to shield himself.

“Watch where you’re pointing that thing,” he says in greeting, only swallowing his bite of apple afterwards.

“B-Barclay? _Barclay_?”

The flashlight beam shakes and then abruptly drops to the ground, and Barclay suddenly finds his arms full of shaking, soaking wet man. The apple falls from his hand and he holds on tight to Stern, all his protective instincts rushing up in a wave, pulling every last bit of levity from his find and making him clutch at Stern, hands traversing him as wholly as possible to check for injury.

“Hey, hey, shhh. Shh, hey. Hey, it’s alright. You’re alright.” He keeps his voice a gentle rumble against Stern’s ear even as one of his hands falls to his own jacket, unzipping it and trying to shrug out of it without letting Stern go. “You’re shivering. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“Just… just.” A beat of silence, maybe Stern trying to gather his wits. “Not badly. Well. It’s fine. I’m… I’m…”

Stern pulls back then, letting Barclay see him for the first time in almost a week. His face is pale and drawn, the circles that normally shadow his eyes seem deeper now, darker. His pupils are blown, all but blocking out the dark brown rims. His hair, growing longer everyday, is soaked, plastered long and dark against his cheekbones.

_God, I’ve missed you,_ his bones say.

“I fell from a tree. Trying to set a trap for-- well, not a trap. More of a lure. Or… or a--”

“The apples,” Barclay supplies gently, draping his jacket around Stern’s much smaller shoulders and pulling the hood up over his head.

“Yes. Yes. I don’t know how much you know about all this stuff, but it’s said that Bigfoot likes apples, and hunters leave them as gifts sometimes. I put those on the branches and hung the one… well anyway, I’ve always wanted to see if he climbs trees like they say, so I put one up high, on that tree.”

He points to some place up the hill, behind Barclay. He doesn’t turn, doesn’t let his attention stray from Stern for a minute. 

“And, I… I don’t know. I slipped, I guess. Lost my balance. I tried to land on my feet and.”

Barclay feels his shrug more than he sees it, and he savors somewhere in the back of his mind how pliant Stern is as Barclay guides his arms into the warm sleeves of his water resistant jacket and zips him up into it.

“Snapped my ankle. I didn’t really bring… well. I didn’t think I would be injured by my own hand. Or my own stupidity, more like.”

“So you brought a gun but not a first aid kit.”

“I have band-aids!” Stern defends, but it’s weak at best. “So I’ve… kind of been stuck here. I can’t walk on it. And it started raining this morning and…”

Another trail off, this one followed by a sigh. Barclay feels an ache growing in his chest, spreading out over him slowly. It’s dangerous, whatever it is. Whatever drove him out of the warm lodge and into the rain to find this man, to make sure he was safe.

“You don’t even have a jacket,” Barclay chides, too kind to be judging in the slightest. “You’re soaking wet. Why aren’t you in your tent?”

The silence that follows stretches out, and Barclay finally bends down to pick up the flashlight and shine it around the camp, stopping when he sees a large lump of material collecting rainwater on the ground. He shines the light between their faces, illuminating both of them so he can fix Stern with an unimpressed stare.

“You don’t. Know how to set up a tent, do you?”

Stern slumps against him in defeat, and Barclay wraps an arm around him to try and take the weight off the broken ankle. 

“I ate one of the apples,” Stern confides miserably.

“You’re hopeless,” Barclay teases, making sure Stern sees his smile before he reaches up to push Stern’s rain-slicked hair back off his face. “I need you to do something for me. Go sit over there on that stump for a few minutes while I set up the tent. There are some heat packs in the pockets, so keep your hands in ‘em. I brought towels and extra clothes and some food, but it’ll be a minute before I can unpack it. So just… be patient. Okay?”

Stern is looking at him strangely, something close and far off all at once, all his features softened in spite of the cold and the pain he’s in. He doesn’t say anything, only nodding before he shuffles over to the tree stump currently serving as a tripod for a second camera protected by a clear cover.

Barclay goes to work as soon as he’s sure Stern is settled in and has his hands in his borrowed jacket pockets, first gathering the tent up from the ground and finding Stern’s sleeping bag beneath, soaking wet by now and completely useless. He turns to look at Stern over his shoulder and is satisfied at how sheepish he looks under the oversized hood.

“FBI agents,” he mumbles to himself.

He sets up the tent and spreads out his own sleeping bag inside, glad that Stern bought this monstrosity of a tent that could easily fit four people because Barclay actually has room to move in it. He sets up a couple of tent lights before unpacking his backpack as quickly as he can, making a pile of food and water next to the folded up clothes and towels. The first aid kit comes out last, and he fishes out a couple of instant ice packs and squeezes them so they’ll start getting cold.

He’s soaked through himself by the time he goes back out to retrieve Stern, but he focuses on helping him up, on taking most of his weight and resisting the urge to just carry him into the tent. 

“You need to change before I can tend to that ankle. There’s some sweatpants and a shirt and a clean hoodie. You’re gonna swim in all of it, just a warning, but it’ll be dry at least.” He’s peeling off his own saturated layers as he speaks, setting his boots in the corner of the tent to dry and stripping down to a single white tanktop that’s somehow only a little damp. He can’t really tell Stern that he doesn’t get cold, that he’d be just fine out here naked and in the rain, but he can’t afford to be suspicious now.

Or naked.

He’s down to his boxer briefs by the time Stern’s got one boot of his own off, and he tugs up his own sweats and turns his attention back to the pitiful man on the other side of the tent.

“I can’t…” Stern starts to explain, motioning down to the unlaced boot on the other foot, the one that surely contains the broken ankle. Barclay moves over next to him without another word, reigning in his considerable strength as he tries to pry the sopping wet boot off without hurting him. Stern whimpers anyway, and Barclay glances up at him with bare sympathy.

“Sorry,” he says in a quiet voice, tossing the boots across the tent next to his own and grabbing the first aid kit. “I’ve got a couple of horse tranqs in here f-- H-half of one should be plenty for you.”

He snaps a pill in half and hands it to Stern with a bottle of water, turning his attention back to helping him out of the wet clothes while he takes the meds. Stern seems hesitant to take off Barclay’s jacket, but Barclay fishes out the heated packs from the pockets and hands them over, and it seems to satisfy him. They get him down to a pair of surprisingly skimpy briefs, and Barclay is torn between enjoying the sight of all that unknown skin and being worried that it’s all damp. 

Stern is shivering now, clutching the heat packs to his chest and curling in over himself, and Barclay crowds in close to give him some bodyheat as he grabs a towel and starts to dry Stern off, starting with his hair and working his way down as dispassionately as he can. The t-shirt turned bandage around Stern’s ankle is as wet as everything else, and the sight of the swollen, odd angle of the skin and bone beneath draws a sharp breath from Barclay.

“Oh, dear,” he says under his breath, the tips of his fingers just barely sliding over his skin. “You need some Tylenol, too. In that case there beside you. Take two to start.”

He glances up at Stern and gives him a faint smile.

“Really did a number on yourself, didn’t you?”

Stern’s already shrugged into the ancient Guns ‘n’ Roses t-shirt Barclay’d brought for him, the shirt so big on his lithe frame that it nearly hangs off one shoulder. Two instincts flare up in Barclay: to tug the shirt into place and keep him warm, and to pull the shirt right back off of him and press his much bigger, much warmer body down on top of him.

He fights both instincts and tries to focus.

“Here, cover up,” Barclay says, dragging the small fleece blanket he’d swiped from the lobby from inside his bag and laying it over Stern’s bare legs. “Just while I… take a look at it.”

No bone’s sticking out, thank goodness, but it’s definitely broken; the jut of broken bone beneath his skin is painful looking and smattered in angry, deep bruises, and Barclay barely resists stroking over the top of his foot in comfort as he dries it and starts to wrap it in the ace bandage from the kit. 

“Why are you out here?” Stern asks, his voice so much softer now that they’re away from the bulk of the pouring rain, and Barclay tries not to fly into a panic at how weak he sounds.

“I, uh. Was spending some time in town, working with the park rangers on new trail maps. I know these woods really well, especially around the lodge, so. Was just headed back when I saw, um. Saw your light.” 

He nods back outside the tent, eyes narrowed as he fastens the bandage closed. He grabs the two instant ice packs and tucks them into the sock that he pulls onto Stern’s right foot, and he only flushes a little bit as he puts the sock on his left foot, too.

“Nobody’s dressed me since I passed out naked on the dean’s lawn in college.”

Barclay grins for that, daring a glance up at Stern and finding him smiling, small and sleepy. His thick hair is already starting to dry, and it’s pulling up into its customary curls, now a veritable mass of brown, boyish waves and ringlets. He’s got Barclay’s hoodie in his arms, hugged up to himself, looking all of twelve.

“I expect that ketamine’s gonna hit you any minute now. Can’t have you freezing your toes off on me.” He gives Stern’s left foot a little squeeze before reaching for the sweatpants, not asking before he starts to work them onto Stern’s body, only getting a little help from the man himself. He gets them up his thighs and stops. “Alright now, I need you to put your arms around my neck and hold on. I’m gonna lift you up just enough to get these on you. Don’t put your weight on that ankle, got it?”

It feels more like a hug than an awkward solution when Stern wraps his arms around Barclay’s neck, and Barclay pauses for the briefest flash when he feels the soft brush of warm air where Stern’s got his nose tucked into his neck.

“Sorry my hair’s still wet, kid,” Barclay says against his damp curls, and he leans back as gently as he can until Stern’s lifted off the ground, and he hurries to pull the pants up around Stern’s tiny waist. “Alright, we’re good. There ya go.”

He lowers Stern back down but doesn’t feel his arms loosen. He smiles and tucks his nose deeper into Stern’s hair, indulging in a deep, savoring breath even though his hair’s definitely filthy and definitely doesn’t smell like the luxury shampoo and leave-in conditioner he usually uses.

Barclay’s just. Seen him open the Amazon boxes, is all.

“I didn’t think to bring a razor. I’ve never seen you with stubble before.”

It’s a gentle prod, just something to say while he’s got Stern practically in his lap, refusing to let go of his neck like a sleepy toddler, and he doesn’t expect the way Stern pulls back in reaction, frowning up at Barclay and rubbing self-consciously at his cheeks.

“Shit, I didn’t even… I didn’t notice it.” He wrinkles his nose and slumps a little more, decidedly not holding onto Barclay anymore. Barclay winces like he’s been slapped.

Idiot.

“No, it’s…” He searches for words, for ones that a man so delicately featured that he’s more likely to be called beautiful than handsome even by the most ignorant person would take as a compliment. It’s in these moments that Barclay feels how human he isn’t, no matter how many years he spends in their world, in their lives. His throat tightens.

“It’s barely there at all,” he finally says, going for casual and hoping it hits the mark. “You still look like a model that just wandered away from a photo set, don’t worry.”

Some of that familiar fire returns to Stern’s eyes, and Barclay can tell he’s biting down on a smile even as he tries to glare.

“Says the Brawny man here,” he retorts, finally breaking out into a grin that is nothing but forgiving. Barclay smirks and leans back so Stern can see it when he flexes and makes his pecs jump through the tanktop, and the sound of Stern’s laugh filling the humid air inside the tent is its own reward.

“Alright, show’s over. Here, eat something before you sleep.” Barclay passes Stern his own trailmix blend and a banana, and he sets a bag of turkey jerky between them after he snags a piece for himself. They eat in relative quiet for awhile, content to listen to the rain now that they’re safe from it. Barclay tugs his hair down from the soaking wet elastic holding it up, and he reaches for the towel they’ve been using to scrub at his head and get as much water out as possible.

Stern’s quiet and still when Barclay looks up at him again, and he fights the heat on his cheeks at the look in those big, dark eyes. 

“I know, I know,” he says, embarrassed. He gathers all his own long, messy curls back up, trying to tame them into something presentable. “I need a rake for my hair, huh?”

“Leave it down,” Stern says, his tone odd, weighted. “It… it needs to dry.”

They put the food away and Stern scoots and wiggles until he’s in the sleeping bag, and Barclay only notices then that Stern put on the hoodie he’d given him. He turns the lights in the corners of the tent off and lays down on top of the sleeping bag, already warm enough in the closed air as it is. The quiet is comfortable but there’s tension in the air, one that Barclay enjoys a little too much.

Stern shifts around beside him, turning one way and then another, like he can’t get comfortable, or maybe he’s in pain. That thought alone is enough for Barclay to break the silence.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” comes the reply, almost too quick. A pause. The sound of Stern’s breathing feels so near, even with all the space between them. He sighs. “Well… I’m just. Still kind cold.”

Barclay weighs his options as quick as he can, trying to talk himself into indulging in a longstanding daydream by applying logic to it. Stern needs body heat. This will be totally normal. Mama would do the same thing if she was here. So would Jake. Survival supersedes devastating crushes. 

He crawls into the sleeping bag, finding the squeeze tight even though it’s meant for two people. He tries to make himself smaller, his shoulders less broad, just in case Stern’s not exactly wanting to have somebody touching him while he sleeps.

“There,” Barclay says as he settles in, aching with the restraint he’s showing. “How’s--”

The heat of Stern’s slight body is suddenly against Barclay’s side, and before he can even react, there’s a cold little face pressing into his neck again, a cheek against his collarbone. Curls crowd his face, all but smothering him in angelic goodness.

What a way to go though.

Stern carefully lifts his injured leg and drapes it over Barclay’s, his arm wrapping around Barclay’s broad chest as he hugs up to his side, snuggled in and demanding. He finally lets out a contented sigh, one that spreads warm over Barclay’s neck and sends goosebumps flying over his entire body.

He laughs, soft and helpless, only hesitating a single second before he cups the back of Stern’s head, fingers sifting through the wilds of his hair and untangling curls as tenderly as he’s ever done anything.

“Better,” Stern mumbles against his throat.

_Nothing better,_ Barclay wants to say back.

Stern’s breathing evens out and deepens as the minutes pass, and Barclay wraps his other arm around him, holding him close, fiercely protective. He closes his eyes and listens to the night settle in around them, life in the forest going on beyond the rain.

He doesn’t sleep, choosing instead to keep vigilant watch over the one in his care.


End file.
